Michael Pollan, the influential food activist and author of such chin-stroking tomes as The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, announced recently a set of guidelines for diners. Given the just fame of his pen and his status as a kind of shaman of the Good Food movement, many of the English-speaking world's feeders may be printing out copies as I write, possibly in convenient 3" x 5" form, so as to keep at the ready whenever sitting down for dinner.
I would do the same, sharing as I do the world's high esteem of Pollan. The problem — if it can even be called that; it's more of a quibble — is that almost every single thing he says is wrong. To wit:
1. Too good to waste: Determine your own portion size, no matter how much you're served. Restaurants serve supersize portions to make you feel you're getting your money's worth. Often it's enough for another serving. So ask them to wrap it to go — in which case you will be getting your money's worth.
This one is actually true. Especially at places like Carmine's and The Cheesecake Factory.
2. Eat with the seasons: Don't eat at restaurants that serve asparagus all year round. (Or strawberries, peaches, or apricots.) The chef's not paying attention to the seasons, and it's unlikely the food will be special.
I for one regularly patronize New York restaurants whose winter menus consist entirely of roots and tubers, and have even been known to stomp out if I catch sight of a Chilean strawberry. Actually, no, I don't. There are no such restaurants. Pollan's advice is completely useless here.
3. Small suppliers: The smaller the delivery truck out back, the better the food inside will be. If a restaurant is getting its ingredients delivered by semi-trailer [or whatever you call a giant lorry], the food is apt to be undistinguished.
Right! Except when, as is so often the case, a big truck does delivery for multiple small farms who can't afford their own lorry. Or whose food is considered of impeccable quality, even if it doesn't come from small farms. Which, while this may be hard to believe, sometimes produce shitty food of their own, even if it does come in small lorries, or better still Volkswagen microbuses.
4. Genuine traceability: Look on the menu for the names of specific farms, not meaningless generic pastoral terms like 'farm eggs', which means nothing.
Unlike "grass-finished" or "pasture-raised," as per the equally ludicrous Rule Number 7. As Jay Rayner pointed out in his own spirited reaction to Pollan's code, the names of specific farms means exactly nothing. Is Pollan under the impression that commodity meat comes with names like "Cowshwitz" and "Chicken Murder Factory Number 1123"? This one is just silly.
5. Go with the specials: If there are daily specials, order them. Usually means fresh ingredients and a thoughtful preparation. But if the waiter doesn't tell you the price, ask — sometimes specials carry special prices as well.
Specials do mean fresh ingredients, if by "fresh" you mean "growing a mold beard." Specials were invented to get rid of old food. That's the primary "thought" behind their preparation, and it basically consists of a dollar bill with wings on it. I am only speaking here of some restaurants, by the way. But you don't know which ones!
6. Rarely order well done steaks: When ordering meat, especially steaks, never ask for well done: chefs typically serve the gnarliest pieces of meat to people who order well-done, either out of a lack of respect or because overcooking covers a multitude of problems. They serve the nicest cuts to patrons who order rare. If you really want well-done, order it rare and then send it back for more cooking.
I'm with him about not ordering well-done steaks, because I don't like them, but if I did, I wouldn't be. So there's that. Also, good restaurants don't typically have gnarly pieces of meat set aside, and if they did, overcooking wouldn't help them one bit, unless they were half-rotten. And if they were, I am guessing you wouldn't want to eat them rare. Am I missing something here? Also, by all means DON'T send your rare meat back asking for it well-done, because that is what might be called in polite society a dick move, and means crassly manipulating the server and the kitchen — who, believe it or not, actually have rights too.
7. Ask where your meat's from: Don't eat meat in restaurants unless the menu specifies that the animals were sustainably and humanely raised. In the case of ruminants, look for terms like grass-finished or pasture-raised.
I mean, it's at this point that I became incredulous. Can Pollan really be so grossly ignorant of human nature as to think that menu claims should be taken at face value? Does he initiate lawsuits when a sports drink doesn't give him "the most awesome energy blast ever"? Does he think that all menus are submitted for auditing by the Bureau of Gastronomy? Or the Justice Department? I suspect that by putting this rule last, he is letting us in on his little joke, an elaborate put-on meant to gently mock over-conscientious diners of the kind lampooned so memorably on Portlandia. But I could be wrong. I often am. I thought The Omnivore's Dilemma was going to be about about buffets.